


Catch up with the sun

by Merel



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Cats, F/M, Gen, Interviews, M/M, POV Third Person Limited, Past Character Death, Pasta, Photographs, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Present Tense, Secrets, elicia is a hughes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 08:21:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20775458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merel/pseuds/Merel
Summary: He smiles at the question, and starts a story about being woken up in the middle of the night because her father was hungry and wanted to sneak off to the kitchens.“He sounded like a troublemaker.”“Oh, he was.” He smiles softly. “Mostly for others, he had a way of never getting caught.”





	Catch up with the sun

“Do you have any funny stories about him? From the academy?”

That’s how she starts the interview. The real interview. Because “do you want me to set the table” is a question, but it’s not something she’s going to use in her project. It’s meant to disarm him, to get him laughing. He does smile at the question, and starts a story about being woken up in the middle of the night because her father was hungry and wanted to sneak off to the kitchens.

“I told him,” He chuckles slightly while stirring in the cheese. “I told him not to take anything obvious, or obviously him, so of course he steals a slice of quiche.”

“But not the entire quiche, right?”

“No, but he sliced himself a piece of an entire, perfectly whole quiche. There could be reasons for an entire quiche not being there, or if they were already sliced and put on to plates, but when there’s a perfect little-” 

He’s interrupted by the kitchen timer going off. She looks around for something to drain the pasta with, but he grabs a pair of tongs and lifts the pasta from the pot into the saucepan.

“So, we’re sneaking back to the dorms when he stops and says  _ Roy, I think there’s salmon in here _ and I turn around to look at him and we just look at each other and he just takes another bite and goes  _ and shrimp too _ and we-” He giggles. “And I think we both remembered at the same time that there was going to be a brunch buffet for some senior officers coming from Central that morning.” He’s still giggling when he adds the smoked chicken and stirs it through. “If we’d been caught, we wouldn’t have been running laps, we’d have been cleaning toilets for a month, if not more.” He shudders dramatically, making her smile.

“Did they suspect anything?”

“I think so.” He uses the tongs to put the pasta on the plates. “Major- well, he was a major at the time, but Major Kramer side-eyed your father for a week after that.”

“Is it okay for me to put it in my project then? It is going to be public.”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” He hands her a plate. “Kramer is retired and co-owns a brewery out west, with his brother, I think. The officers who went to the brunch, uh, they-” He grimaces slightly. “Aren’t in the military anymore.”

Right. A euphemism. She wishes people would stop doing that around her, she’s not a little girl anymore. She grabs her glass of soda from the counter and follows him to the dinner table, where she puts her plate and drink and sits down on one of the fancy-looking dining chairs. She quickly scribbles the story in shorthand in her notebook while he pours a glass of red wine for himself. 

“He sounded like a troublemaker.”

“Oh, he was.” He smiles softly as he sets down the bottle. “Mostly for others, he had a way of never getting caught.” His smile dims a bit after that, but he regains it after a second. “Buon appetito.”

It takes her two tries to get a decent amount of tagliatelle on her fork, but when she does she’s rewarded with a rich flavour she never really expected from the cheese. It tastes amazing, but the bite probably contains as much butter as she’s had in an entire month. “This is really good.” She forces out when she can talk again.

He already has his third fork-full when he smiles. “Thank you.”

She should remember to ask for the recipe, to see if she could make it sometime. Her mom does all the cooking, but her step-father doesn’t enjoy anything more interesting than potatoes, vegetables, and meat. She recalls her mom making quiche when she was little, when her dad was still alive, but she doesn’t remember much else about him. It’s why she made her history project about him, the Brigadier-General, the war veteran, the man whose pictures were taken down and stuffed in boxes when they moved in with her step-father and his kids. 

She’s poured over albums with photographs, traced the scratchy yet careful handwriting of her 15-year-old father as he wrote about getting his first camera and developing his first pictures, pictures of his friends, of his dorm room, empty spaces with writing where his camera was taken away, all the way to a dozen albums of pictures of a little girl with pigtails. When she was done with those she had moved to the loose photographs, hundreds of them, of the little girl and her mom, just her mom, occasionally a few of her dad, with only a date and a few words on the back. She’d carefully put those in a different box, already half-full of copies of archive files, and shoved it back under her bed, away from her step-sister’s prying eyes. There were other pictures though, packed in a metal lock box she’d opened with the lockpicking set she bought when she was eleven. Thinking of those pictures, the people and things in them and the words on their backs still churns her stomach, and she takes a sip of her soda to wash the feeling away. 

Something soft rubs against her legs, and when she looks under the table green eyes are begging at her from a grey face.

“Don’t feed her anything, she’s on a diet.”

She looks back at him. “Caecilia?”

“All of them.” He pulls a face. “All the ladies are on a diet, but don’t let her fool you, I gave them something half an hour ago.” Caecilia meows under the table, but he rolls his eyes. “Her hobby right now is pretending that I’m starving her.”

She smiles and tries to ignore the cat rubbing her ankles.

“You don’t have a job outside of school, right?”

“Uhm.” As a matter of fact, her mom had been pressuring her to take a paper route, or to wash dishes, and she’d been looking, but nothing seemed interesting enough.

He smiled. “We’re campaigning in the south in a week or two, and I was wondering if you had time after school to feed them and run a lint roller over things.”

“Oh.” She looks back at Caecilia sitting primly under the table. Taking some time between her busy school and her busy home would be… nice. She looks up. “Yeah, I have time.”

“No clubs?”

“No, the newspaper stopped last year.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He raises his eyebrows. “Anything I can do?”

She smiles at her plate. “Probably not, there just weren’t enough people for it.”

“Ah, I’m sorry.” She looks up to see him smile apologetically. “I’ve lead you from your interview subject.”

“No, no,” she tries to reassure, “it’s a good segue to another question. Was my father ever in any clubs?”

“Well, I don’t know about boarding school, but in the academy…” He looks up and taps his plate. “Oh!” His eyes are lit up when he looks back at her. “He played trombone in the band. Wore the tacky colours and funny hat and everything. There must be some pictures in the yearbooks of him, the only pictures where he wears that costume and doesn’t make a ridiculous pose.” 

She smiles as well. “I saw him wearing that in the album he made, I wondered what it was for.”

She’s looking for any reaction from him, which makes her notice that his eyes suddenly dim. “The album from the academy?”

“Yeah, he put the pictures he made at the academy in an album, I didn’t bring it with me.” In hindsight it would have been a good idea to do that and go through the pictures. Well, she only had so much space in her bag, and it’d already been a fight to get here.

“That’s alright, I already saw… it.” He’s frowning as he says it, but his face clears and he smiles again after a few seconds. “The yearbooks would probably be the best source for facts like that.”

She shrugs and twirls more pasta on her fork. “I think they got lost during the move.”

“Huh, well, you can borrow mine if you need them for your project.”

“Thank you, that would be nice.” She stuffs the pasta in her mouth and writes in her notebook again. She moves her pen to the next question and swallows. Easy ones, low-balls to make him feel safe. She feels sort of queasy when she asks them and pens down his answers, sketching a picture of her father in words instead of photographs.

Finally there’s an opening in an answer about his cooking skills, of all things. She keeps her voice level. This is what she came here for, things she couldn’t ask or tell anyone else. “I also found some pictures, not in albums, and I was wondering about those.”

He’s just finished perfectly twirling his pasta when she says so, and he nods while putting it in his mouth.

She takes a deep breath. “I was wondering if you had any stories about him in Ishval.”

He swallows his bite and looks somewhere to the right of her. He’s quiet, unmoving, and she’s starting to regret her question, when he answers. “There are official documents, and the Civil War trials have documentation and recordings as well, all open to the public.”

“The documents are all kind of impersonal, and there were things missing from the- from the trials.” 

“Oh?” He sounds careful and his eyes snap to her. “What makes you think that?”

And she doesn’t hear it as a denial, as a condescending question to make her shut up. So she steels herself and continues.

“There were gaps in the prosecution, I read some articles about it.” She twirls the tagliatelle on her fork so she can avoid looking at him. “Questions that weren’t asked, uh, when I went through the transcripts-” his fork scrapes loudly across his plate, making her wince, “events that didn’t really get elaborated on, that sort of stuff. Uhm, like,” she pretends to rack her brain for a second, like she hasn’t memorized a list, “well, some things just don’t add up sometimes. Like the thing with Colonel Fessler?” She looks up then. 

He’s leaning back, with a calculating glint in his eyes. After a few seconds of staring and measuring, long enough to make her feel like she should fidget, he takes a sip of his wine. “There were many things that didn’t add up about the late Brigadier General Fessler, but I’m not sure what you’re aiming at.” 

His voice is cold and light, but she wants to, no, she  _ needs _ to know. “Well, I mean, my dad was under his command, right?” He nods. “Until he was shot.” 

He looks at her, probably waiting for the rest of the sentence, but she stops there, and drinks from her lemon soda. 

“Until he was shot.” He repeats. 

“Yeah.” She puts down the glass. “And then Brigadier General Grand took over.” 

“He was a colonel at the time.” 

“Uh, yeah.” She ducks her head and pretends to be embarrassed. “I must’ve gotten them mixed up somehow. So, anyway, that was when the Ishvalan religious leader surrendered, a few months after the order was signed.”

He nods silently.

“Then-Fuhrer Bradley had him executed anyway, but before that, to get there, well-”

He’s staring at her very intently.

“Who shot Brigadier General Fessler?”

“I thought you wanted to know about your father?”

“I do.” She says, pushing up her glasses.

“Is this still for your school project?”

“I- It’s not- This is more a personal thing. That I want to know. I just have some theor-”

“I’m sure you hear this a lot, but you really are very much like your father.”

Her breath gets stuck in her throat. She doesn’t hear that a lot. She twirls the tagliatelle and spears a piece of chicken at the end. “I- Thanks.”

It’s quiet for a few seconds while she chews. “It’s not a compliment.” She almost chokes on her pasta and has to cough and cover her mouth. “Not entirely.” He continues. “You shouldn’t ask questions like that. Or at least don’t make it obvious that you’re looking for those kinds of answers. I doubt your searches into the archives went unnoticed.” 

“They’re all open to the public, like you said, I didn’t do anything illegal.”

He sighs. “The point isn’t if it’s legal or not, the point is that there are people who don’t appreciate it when little girls snoop around. Or when people in general snoop around.”

She swallows the pasta. Of course she’d thought about it, but she had figured that if everything was legal, if all the documents were open, no one would care.

“General Fessler was killed by a stray bullet,” He says.

She tries not to clench her teeth. That’s also what the report says. The report  _ her father _ wrote. “There are statistics that say that a large part of officer deaths were caused by their subordinates. Fessler was notorious for his disregard of other people’s lives.” 

“So?”

She snaps her head up to look at him. “So? Fessler just so happens to get hit by a stray bullet just when the religious leader gets captured?"

"Stranger things have happened."

Even though his words and tone have turned condescending, she pushes forward. “It’s too much of a coincidence to have happened. There’s too much chance involved for it to have been a stray bullet.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to know the truth.”

He smiles, but it’s a bitter thing. “No, you don’t.”

It knocks her silent for a few seconds. “Yes I do, I want-”

“You want to believe your father did some good things in Ishval, and I’m sure he did.” He’s not looking at her again, staring at something behind her. 

“I know he fed a stray dog some scraps, he got rid of a handsy sergeant, and he prevented someone from getting shot. But the dog died later, the sergeant only got relocated to another sector, and he killed someone who did everything he could to save tens of thousands of people, saving the life of the person who went on to burn them all.” He’s quiet for a few seconds, blinking, and she can’t breathe. 

“Your father killed and was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people, and he didn’t kill Fessler, but even if he did, it wouldn’t have made him a hero.” His eyes are glistening when he suddenly looks down, but she can’t look away from him. 

She feels… numb. She’s read the articles, seen official pictures, seen the pictures her father made, but still, somehow, she’d hoped that he wasn’t like that. Him being from the Investigations department should have meant that he hadn’t gone to the frontlines, and even looking at the memos that showed her that he did, she’d… put it in the back of her mind, and hadn’t looked at it again. Her mom was right, it had been too personal.

She tries to gather her thoughts while he lifts Iwa onto his lap. “I’m sorry.”

He’s quiet for a few seconds, scratching the bob-tailed cat under her chin. “Don’t be. I knew you’d want to know about his past one day.” He picks up his fork with his other hand, twirls it and takes a bite of the pasta.

She does the same thing, just to have a moment of silence. It has cooled down, and it’s hard to swallow past the lump in her throat, but the flavour hasn’t dimmed.

“I- uh, honestly hadn’t expected you to start by accusing him of assassinating a superior officer, though.” 

She can’t smile right now, so she pushes up her glasses. “I never said that.”

He blinks at her, then barks a laugh. “I guess you didn’t.” His smile dims, and he’s quiet again, but he doesn’t take another bite. “Your mother barely knows about what your father did in Ishval. He never wanted to talk about it.” He gently removes Iwa’s paw from the table. “Not even with his wife.” 

So her mother’s suggestion that she talk with him hadn’t only been because she hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Which reminds her of something else she said when she was going through albums.

“Mom mentioned that you took some of dad’s things when we moved.”

“I- Yes. I did. Case files and books, mostly. Your mother wanted to throw them out.” 

“Oh.” 

“I’ll- I put them in the attic somewhere, I can’t get them right now.”

_ Not when she’s here, _ so she nods and scrapes together the last of the pasta to eat.

“The yearbooks are in my study, however. I’ll get them before you leave.”

His words remind her of the time, and when she checks the clock she winces. Her mom is not going to be happy with this. 

“Which is now?” 

“Yeah, I’m sorry, my mom wants me to-” 

“Don’t apologize, it gets dark early this time of year.” He takes Iwa off his lap and stands up, taking the plates and cutlery. She hurriedly drinks the rest of her soda, grabs her notebook and follows him to the kitchen, almost tripping over Caecilia. 

“Dessert is in the bread case, if you want something for the way home.” His back is turned to her, he’s running water over the plates, and she’s not hungry anymore, but she can’t say no either. She avoids both cats and rolls open the case. The half loaf of bread is pushed aside, making the basket of about three dozen colourful macarons immediately obvious. She takes a pink one, and when she turns it around she’s greeted by floral patterns in the shell. These can’t be cheap.

“Take a couple of them, the other party members are getting too spoiled.”

If it was anyone else, she’d say no, but knowing him she’d mysteriously end up with her coat pockets full of macarons if she’d refuse, so she picks out a few with different colours. The tap turns off behind her and a cupboard opens and closes, and when she turns around he’s laid a paper bag on the counter. His face is still turned away from her. 

“I’ll go grab the yearbooks.” He leaves the kitchen and her standing in the middle of it. 

She breathes for a few seconds and wonders how much she’s fucked up. She carefully puts the macarons in the bag, and sure he said she didn’t have to be sorry but adults lie, and then lie about lying, and her step-father always says that politicians are the best and worst liars of all. She closes the bag, she’d better put on her coat already, even if it won’t make the tram hurry up. She leaves the kitchen, but a beautiful cream and brown long-haired cat is waiting at the door to the entry. She tries to shoo her away, but she meows and circles in front of the door. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll pick her up.” He comes down the stairs carrying a full cotton tote bag. He puts the bag on the cabinet, and scoops Erinna off the floor. “I swear, she only does that so she can get hugs.” Erinna starts purring, almost in agreement. He tuts in her fur. “You don’t have to pretend to want to go outside to get hugs, sweetheart.” He smiles at her, and it’s fragile, but there’s a warmth there. 

She hesitantly smiles back when she puts her notebook and macarons next to the tote and grabs her coat from the hook. “Is it still okay if I cat-sit?”

“Yes, of course.” 

She nods, but can’t say much else, putting on her coat and fitting her notebook and the macarons into her backpack. 

“Elicia.” 

She turns around at the sound of her name. 

“No matter what your father did, I know he loved you and your mother very much.”

He looks like he’s on the verge of tears again, and she clenches her eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”

And it’s an apology for more than he knows she’s apologizing for. It’s an apology for snooping through the pictures in the lock box, the ones she was sure her mother had never seen, of him and her dad, soft pictures that contrasted the death and sand in the other pictures hidden away there, but he shushes her and rubs her shoulder. “I told you, there’s nothing to be sorry for.” 

A soft trill seems to agree with him, when she opens her eyes Erinna is leaning over towards her. She sniffs at her face for a few seconds before pulling back and making herself comfortable in his arms. He steps back and hands her the bag off the cabinet.

“Are you going to be okay walking to the tram stop? I could drive you there.”

It’s a nice offer, one she would have accepted any other time, but she thinks she wants to be alone for a bit. She shrugs on her backpack and hangs the book-filled tote over her shoulder. “I’ll be fine, it’s not that long a walk.”

He still looks hesitant when he closes the entry door and opens the front door for her. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

He still doesn’t look convinced. “Could you call me Thursday evening to go over cat-sitting details?” 

She’d maybe have to take a trip to the corner store and the nearby phone booth for it, but it works for her. “Okay, Thursday evening.” She steps outside, down the stairs and pulls her coat closer to her.

“Goodnight.”

She turns around and he’s standing there, cat in arms, sorrow and regret etched into his face. She tries to smile. “Goodnight.” 

She turns around, her bags a heavy weight as she settles into a brisk walk to catch her tram. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hee hoo I started this fic more than half a year ago and suddenly got motivated to get it done! Thank you to my beta [Ganymeme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ganymeme/pseuds/Ganymeme) for adding flow and educating me on furniture.  
Come cry at me on [my tumblr](http://www.stiekemekat.tumblr.com), comments are always welcome and kudos are very loved!  
It has [fanart from a Secret Santa exchange!!](https://stiekemekat.tumblr.com/post/190740375466/secret-santa-gift-from-fizzybubblespop) <3 <3  
I've also made a title/moodboard edit thing for this fic! On [Tumblr](https://stiekemekat.tumblr.com/post/622611916791119872) and on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/everyhughesfma/status/1278701179300700162?s=20).


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